Lorem Picsum provides free, random, high-quality placeholder images sourced from Unsplash, making it easy for developers and designers to fill mockups and prototypes.

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🚀 Overview

Lorem Picsum is a simple service that generates stylish placeholder images on demand, acting as the 'Lorem Ipsum' for photos. Instead of using bland gray boxes or generic stock images, it delivers real, high-resolution photos from Unsplash with just a URL tweak.

It solves the common pain point of needing quick, realistic images during UI/UX design, prototyping, and development without searching stock libraries, signing up for APIs, or managing downloads. Built primarily for web developers, designers, and frontend teams who want to focus on layout and functionality rather than placeholder hunting.

Created by David Marby around 2014, it was designed to be dead simple, reliable, and completely free—filling a gap for an easy-to-use, no-strings-attached image placeholder service that's been a staple in the dev community for over a decade.

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✨ Key Features

• Random images by size: Append width/height to the URL like https://picsum.photos/200/300 for a random photo perfectly sized—no cropping needed.
• Customization options: Specific image IDs (/id/237), seeds for reproducibility (/seed/picsum), grayscale (?grayscale), blur (?blur=2), and formats (.jpg, .webp).
• API endpoints: List all images (/v2/list), get image info (/id/237/info), with pagination and metadata including author and download links.
• Multiple images: Use ?random=1 to get unique images and avoid caching issues.
• Powered by Unsplash: Attribution-friendly photos from real photographers.

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🛠 Tech Stack

• Frontend: HTML, CSS, JavaScript
• Backend: Go, libvips (for image processing and resizing)
• Build/Dev: Nix flakes, Makefile, Air (hot reload)
• Hosting: Fastly CDN
• Auth: None (public service)

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👥 Who Is This For?

This project is useful for:

• Developers who want to quickly populate prototypes with realistic images
• Teams looking for free, no-signup placeholders during design sprints
• Indie makers building demos, portfolios, or MVPs without image hassles

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📸 Screenshots / Demo

• Live demo: https://picsum.photos
• GitHub: https://github.com/DMarby/picsum-photos

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🔥 Project Status

• 🟡 Maintained

Last updated: 2026-01-30

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❓ FAQ

Is this project free?

Yes (completely free for personal and commercial use, no limits or signups).

Is the source code available?

Yes — https://github.com/DMarby/picsum-photos

Can I contribute?

Yes—report bugs or suggest features by opening issues, submit pull requests for fixes/improvements, or help with documentation on GitHub.

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📬 Contact & Links

• Website: https://picsum.photos
• GitHub: https://github.com/DMarby
• Twitter/X: https://x.com/DMarby

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